


If You Were A Book, You'd Be Fine Print

by SolarMorrigan



Series: Solar's 007 Fest 2019 [27]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, Fluff, Kinda, M/M, Prompt Fill, bookshop au, there is no plot here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 08:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20005399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: All Bond needs is children's picture book; instead, he finds Q (also some children's picture books. It's a productive trip to the bookstore)





	If You Were A Book, You'd Be Fine Print

**Author's Note:**

> Day 27! This one is a fill for "Bravo" on the [Random Prompt Table](https://mi6cafe.wordpress.com/007-fest/007-fest-2019-prompt-tables/) and for Anon Prompt 48 on the [MI6 Cafe Prompt Exchange](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LwtIoqppLgPC3D0bJ5HF7ZcIJEnNgGmQcm21977FGJc/edit?pli=1#gid=628702862), which called for a bookstore AU. This is really just mindless fluff to make up for the last few days of angst
> 
> If you spot any typos, feel free to point them out

The shop was unremarkable in the way all bookstores with coffeeshops and inexplicable film sections were, but it did sell books, and that was all Bond really needed. He’d found himself conned into going to a children’s birthday party on Saturday and had been reliably informed by the internet that five-year-olds liked picture books; a quick in and out for a book or two would do just fine.

Tanner’s wife had of course informed Bond of the time and place of the party—without actually telling him it _was_ a party until he’d agreed to come—but hadn’t told him what the twin girls would actually want as gifts, and Tanner himself was laughing too hard to tell him anything useful, and so Bond had taken to Google. Bond strongly suspected he could have shown up empty handed and Tanner’s wife wouldn’t have cared one bit because she’d actually invited him in an attempt to set him up with her brother, a new idea she’d gotten into her head since learning Bond played for both teams, but Bond would be damned if he showed up ill-prepared for any kind of party, anyway.

It had been rather a long time since Bond himself had been a five-year-old, and suspected the landscape of children’s books had changed a bit in the intervening years, but was reasonably confident in his ability to pick something out of the sea of colorful board books and soft toys that took up a large corner of the store.

There were surprisingly few children underfoot as Bond navigated the shelves, bypassing the chapter books for something a little lower in grade level—though Tanner would proudly tell anyone who even brushed the subject that his daughters were reading at a much higher level than their peers, Bond still felt that something with more pictures would be the way to go—and it wasn’t until he reached the center of the section that he realized why.

A small horde of small children could be found there, some sitting with parents and some alone, all raptly watching a man who was sitting on a stool in front of them, wearing an employee polo shirt and reading from a book.

Almost immediately, Bond found his own attention captured, though likely not for the same reason as the children. The man with the book was quite attractive, with waves of dark hair and a generous mouth curved into a sweet smile as he read. His eyes were bright behind modish glasses and his voice was smooth and lilting; Bond spent a moment just listening to the cadence of it before he realized he actually recognized some of the characters being mentioned.

The man was reading from _A Bear Called Paddington._ Good God, that was still relevant? Bond remembered that story from when _he_ was a child.

In a bizarre fit of nostalgia (and a half-formed plan to ask the attractive employee what kind of book twin soon-to-be-five-year-old girls might find appealing), Bond stood and listened to the remaining ten minutes of the reading.

When the employee—Bond couldn’t see his entire nametag, just the start of a name that began with ‘Q’—finished the chapter, he closed up the book and thanked everyone for attending, reminding them again of the title and author and where more books of its ilk could be found as they began to shuffle their children away. He had picked up a bottle of water to drink from when Bond approached. “Bravo,” Bond began, promptly startling the man into inhaling his next sip of water.

_“Shit,”_ Bond hissed, thumping the man carefully on the back as he tried to clear his airway, “sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“‘s fine,” the man rasped, coughing again and waving Bond off. “I just didn’t see you there. How can I help you?”

Bond quirked a smile at the man—Q, he realized, was all the nametag read; that was curious—sheepish and sharp. “I didn’t want to kill you, just congratulate you on your reading; you have a lovely voice for it.”

Q’s face, only just losing the color brought up by his coughing fit, pinked up again just a bit. “Ah. Well– thank you. The story has always been a favorite of mine; it’s nice to think I can do it justice.”

“You certainly do,” Bond assured him, wondering at what point his life had come to flirting with a man over a children’s book and then deciding he didn’t quite care. “I admit, I didn’t realize old Paddington was still around.”

“Still alive and well,” Q said, offering Bond a pleased smile for the recognition.

“Well that is a relief,” Bond teased. “Though I wondered if I might be able to ask your opinion, as you clearly have good taste in literature…”

The next 15 minutes were spent roaming the aisles of the children’s book section, learning more about picture books than Bond was sure he really needed to know, but enjoying the way Q told him about them (likely it was more than Q really needed to be telling him but, judging from the sly looks Q kept shooting his way, he was enjoying toting Bond around the store as much as Bond was enjoying being toted). He walked away with more books than he’d intended on buying when he came in, including a copy of _A Bear Called Paddington_ (he supposed if the girls weren’t yet able to read it, their parents could just read it to thim), but found he didn’t much mind being upsold a bit when there was a phone number in his pocket to go with all the books in his shopping bag.

Perhaps not everything found in big-name bookstores was unremarkable, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on [Tumblr](https://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/post/186592165568/if-you-were-a-book-youd-be-fine-print-james)


End file.
